those tracts, pamphlets, and cheap books he hoarded in his hut on shelves made from wooden boxes and old fruit-cases.

But there was nothing of the schoolmaster about him. He rarely gave information unless he was asked for it. The men appreciated that, although they were proud of his erudition and books. They knew dimly but surely that Michael used his books for, not against, themselves; and he was attached to books and learning, chiefly for what they could do for them, his mates. In all community discussions his opinion carried considerable weight. A matter was often talked over with more or less heat, differences of opinion thrashed out while Michael smoked and listened, weighing the arguments. He rarely spoke until his view was asked for. Then in a couple of minutes he would straighten out the subject of controversy, show what was to be said for and against a proposition, sum up, and give his conclusions, for or against it.

Michael Brady, however, was much more the general utility man than encyclopædia of Fallen Star Ridge. If a traveller—swagman—died on the road, it was Michael who saw he got a decent burial; Michael who was sent for if a man had his head smashed in a brawl, or a wife died unexpectedly. He was the court of final appeal in quarrels and disagreements between mates; and once when Martha M'Cready was away in Sydney, he had even brought a baby into the world. He was something of a dentist, too, honorary dentist to anyone on the Ridge who wanted a tooth pulled out; and the friend of any man, woman, or child in distress.

And he did things so quietly, so much as a matter of course, that people did not notice what he did for them, or for the rest of the Ridge. They took it for granted he liked doing what he did; that he liked helping them. It was his sympathy, the sense of his oneness with all their lives, and his shy, whimsical humour and innate refusal to be anything more than they were, despite his books and the wisdom with which they were quite willing to credit him, that gained for Michael the regard of the people of the Ridge, and made him the unconscious power he was in the community.

Of about middle height, and sparely built, Michael was forty-five, or thereabouts, when Mrs. Rouminof died. He looked older, yet had the vigour and energy of a much younger man. Crowsfeet had gathered at the corners of his eyes, and there were the fines beneath them which all back-country men have from screwing their sight against the brilliant sunshine of the north-west. But the white of his eyes was as clear as the shell of a bird's egg, the irises grey, flecked with hazel and green, luminous, and ringed with fine black lines. When he pushed back his hat, half a dozen lines from frowning against the glare were on his forehead too. His thin, black hair, streaked with grey, lay flat across and close to his head. He had a well-shaped nose and the sensitive nostrils of a thoroughbred, although Michael himself said he was no breed to speak of, but plain Australian—and proud of it. His father was born in the country, and so was his mother. His father had been a teemster, and his mother a storekeeper's daughter. Michael had wandered from one mining field to another in his young days. He had worked in Bendigo and Gippsland; later in Silver Town; and from the Barrier Ranges had migrated to Chalk Cliffs, and from the Cliffs to Fallen Star Ridge. He had been one of the first comers to the Ridge when opal was discovered there.

The Rouminofs had been on Chalk Cliffs too, and had come to the Ridge in the early days of the rush. Paul had set up at the Cliffs as an opal buyer, it was said; but he knew very little about opal. Anybody could sell him a stone for twice as much as it was worth, and he could never get a price from other buyers for the stones he bought. He soon lost any money he possessed, and had drifted and swung with the careless life of the place. He had worked as a gouger for a while when the blocks were bought up. Then when the rush to the Ridge started, and most of the men tramped north to try their luck on the new fields, he went with them; and Mrs. Rouminof and Sophie followed a little later on Ed. Ventry's bullock wagon, when Ed. was taking stores to the rush.

Mrs. Rouminof had lived in a hut at the Old Town even after the township was moved to the eastern slope of the Ridge. She had learnt a good deal about opal on the Cliffs, and soon after she came to the Ridge set up a cutting-wheel, and started cutting and polishing stones. Several of the men brought her their stones, and after a while she was so good at her work that she often added a couple of pounds to the value of a stone. She kept a few goats too, to assure a means of livelihood when there was no opal about, and she sold goats' milk and butter in the township. She had never depended on Rouminof to earn a living, which was just as well, Fallen Star folk agreed, since, as long as they had known him, he had never done so. For a long time he had drifted between the mines and Newton's, cadging drinks or borrowing money from anybody who would lend to him. Sometimes he did odd jobs at Newton's or the mail stables for the price of a few drinks; but no man who knew him would take up a claim, or try working a mine with him.

His first mate on the Ridge had been Pony-Fence Inglewood. They sank a hole on a likely spot behind the Old Town; but Paul soon got tired of it. When they had not seen anything but bony potch for a while, Paul made up his mind there was nothing in the place. Pony-Fence rather liked it. He was for working a little longer, but to oblige his mate he agreed to sink again. Soon after they had started, Paul began to appear at the dump when the morning was half through, or not at all. Or, as often as not, when he did decide to sling a pick, or dig a bit, he groaned so about the pains in his back or his head that as often as not Pony-Fence told him to go home and get the missus to give him something for it.

The mildest man on the fields, Pony-Fence Inglewood did not discover for some time what the boys said was correct. There was nothing the matter with Rum-Enough but a dislike of shifting mullock if he could get anyone to shift it for him. When he did discover he was doing the work of the firm, Pony-Fence and Paul had it out with each other, and parted company. Pony-Fence took a new mate, Bully Bryant, a youngster from Budda, who was anxious to put any amount of elbow grease into his search for a fortune, and Paul drifted. He had several mates afterwards, newcomers to the fields, who wanted someone to work with them, but they were all of the same opinion about him.

"Tell Rum-Enough there's a bit of colour about, and he'll work like a chow," they said; "but if y' don't see anything for a day or two, he goes as flat as the day before yesterday."

If he had been working, and happened on a knobby, or a bit of black potch with a light or two in it, Paul was like a child, crazy with happiness. He could talk of nothing else. He thought of nothing else. He slung his pick and shovelled dirt as long as you would let him, with a devouring impatience, in a frenzy of eagerness. The smallest piece of stone with no more than sun-flash was sufficient to put him in a state of frantic excitement.

Strangers to the Ridge sometimes wanted to know whether Rouminof had ever had a touch of the sun. But Ridge folk knew he was not mad. He had the opal fever all right, they said, but he was not mad.

When Jun Johnson blew along at the end of one summer and could not get anyone to work with him, he took Paul on. The two chummed up and started to sink a hole together, and the men made bets as to the chance of their ever getting ten or a dozen feet below ground; but before long they were astounded to see the old saw of setting a thief to catch a thief working true in this instance. If anybody was loafing on the new claim, it was not Rouminof. He did every bit of his share of the first day's hard pick work and shovelling. If anybody was slacking, it was Jun rather than Paul. Jun kept his mate's nose to the